Editing within single timeline

Abstract

Video clips are depicted both in an overall layer and in a set of individual tracks, or rows. The user can cause the display to be expanded or collapsed, as desired, so as to reveal or hide the individual tracks. Video clips are fully editable in either the expanded or collapsed viewing modes. When the collapsed mode is in effect, bars representing individual video clips are still visible, and can be individually selected and manipulated. When the expanded mode is in effect, separate tracks are shown for each individual clip, but the overall layer remains visible, and the individual video clips also remain visible, selectable, and manipulable within the overall layer.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is related to the following commonly owned and co-pending U.S. patent applications, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by reference:[0002]U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 826,973 for “Animation of an Object Using Behaviors”, filed Apr. 16, 2004.[0003]U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 826,878 for “Gesture Control of Multimedia Editing Applications”, filed Apr. 16, 2004.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]1. Field of the Invention[0005]The present invention relates generally to user interfaces for video editing applications, and more particularly to a user interface that provides expandable and collapsible layers for organizing, viewing, and manipulating a video project.[0006]2. Background of the Invention[0007]Most video editing software applications provide some sort of timeline view of the video project. Conventionally, a timeline view is a graphical representation showing a number of video clips and thei...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0016]The present invention combines the benefits of a single-row timeline with those of the multiple-row approach. Video clips are depicted both in an overall layer and in a set of individual tracks. The user can cause the display to be expanded or collapsed, as desired, so as to reveal or hide the individual tracks. Video clips are fully editable in both the expanded and collapsed viewing modes. When the collapsed mode is in effect, bars representing individual video clips are still visible, and can be individually selected and manipulated. When the expanded mode is in effect, separate tracks are shown for each individual clip, but the overall layer remains visible, and the individual video clips also remain visible, selectable, and manipulable withi...

Problems solved by technology

Such an approach, which is common in most video editing programs, makes it difficult to distinguish between overlapping clips and sequentially arranged clips.

Thus, although timeline bar 201 offers a more streamlined view of the video project, it does not allow for direct editing of its component clips 101, forcing the user to switch between views in order to perform editing operations.

However, such an arrangement can become cumbersome when, for example, the video project includes a large number of clips 101 in sequence; the timeline display can become excessively deep in the vertical direction, since a separate row 100 is generated for each clip 101.

This timeline bar 201 is referred to as a “nest.” However, as with the technique depicted in FIG. 1B, such an arrangement does not provide any indication of the contents of bar 201, and does not provide any mechanism for directly editing those contents.

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